Section Four: Customizing Adobe Reader for your accessibility needs

Controlling the delivery method of pages for assistive technology

When Adobe® Reader® delivers information to a screen reader, screen magnifier, or other assistive technology, it loads information into a memory buffer that is directly available to the assistive technology. The amount of information that is delivered to the memory buffer can affect how long Adobe Reader takes to perform tasks, such as opening the document, turning pages, changing views, and carrying out commands.

Adobe Reader gives you three choices for deciding how much information to deliver at once to your assistive technology:

  • Deliver only the currently visible pages. This is usually the best option when you are using a screen magnifier. It improves performance by eliminating the need for the software to sort through parts of the document that are not visible.
  • Deliver the entire document at once. This is the best option when you are using a screen reader, which may have its own navigation and search tools that may be more familiar to you than the tools in Adobe Reader.
  • Deliver the entire document unless the document exceeds a certain number of pages. Adobe Reader lets you specify how many pages to deliver before it reverts to page-by-page delivery. This is usually the best option if you are using a screen reader and you have very long or complex Adobe PDF documents that Adobe Reader must analyze. It is the default setting for Adobe Reader.

Note for users of screen readers: If a PDF document is not tagged, Adobe Reader may infer the structure of the document for reading order. Adobe Reader can take a long time to analyze a long document and infer the document's structure. You may want to set Adobe Reader to deliver only the currently visible page so that it analyzes only a small piece of the document at a time. This consideration will vary depending on the size and complexity of the document and on the features of the screen reader.

How delivering only the currently visible pages affects navigation

When Adobe Reader is sending only the currently visible pages of a PDF document to the memory buffer, the assistive technology has access to those pages only. It cannot go to another page until the next page is visible and Adobe Reader has sent the page information to the memory buffer. Therefore, when you choose to have Adobe Reader deliver only currently visible pages, you must use the navigation features of Adobe Reader, not those of the assistive technology, to navigate from page to page in the document.

You should also set the Default Page Layout option in preferences to be Single Page when you choose to have Adobe Reader send only the currently visible pages to your assistive technology. Because Adobe Reader sends page information about all visible pages, the assistive technology receives information about pages that may be only partially visible (such as the bottom of one page or the top of the next), as well as those pages that are completely visible. If you use a page display setting other than Single Page, such as Continuous, and then you display the next page, the technology may not correctly track which portion of a previous page it has already read aloud. For instructions on setting the default page layout to Single Page, see "Adjusting the page display".

Preferences dialog with Reading category selected. Screen Reader Options area is emphasized.

You can set the document delivery method for a screen reader or other assistive technology in the Reading category of the Preferences dialog box.

Setting the delivery method for assistive technology

You can set the delivery method for the current document only, or for all documents that you open in Adobe Reader. The settings take effect immediately.

To set the delivery method for the current document only:

  1. Choose Document > Change Accessibility Reading Options, or press Ctrl+Shift+5 (Windows) or Command+Shift+5 (Mac OS).
  2. Use the Tab key, the Up Arrow key, the Down Arrow key, and the Spacebar to select either of the following:
    • Read The Currently Visible Pages Only (in Windows, press Alt+P)
    • Read The Entire Document (in Windows, press Alt+D)

To set the delivery method for all PDF documents:

  1. Open the Preferences dialog box by doing one of the following:
    • In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences, or press Ctrl+K, or press Alt+E, and then press N.
    • In Mac OS, choose Adobe Reader > Preferences, or press Command+K.
  2. Select the Reading category (in Windows, press R).
  3. Activate the Page Vs Document drop-down menu (in Windows, press Alt+P) and select the preferred method of delivery:
    • Only Read The Currently Visible Pages
    • Read The Entire Document
    • For Large Documents, Only Read The Currently Visible Pages
  4. If you select For Large Documents, Only Read The Currently Visible Pages, go to the box for Minimum Number Of Pages In A Large Document (in Windows, press Alt+M). Type the minimum number of pages that you want a document to have before Adobe Reader reverts to sending only the currently visible pages of the document. Type a higher page count, such as 100, if you want a screen reader to avoid analyzing very long documents at once.

Note: You can also change these settings on screen 4 of the Accessibility Setup Assistant. In the setup wizard, the above four options are called Deliver Currently Visible Pages, Deliver The Entire Document At Once, Deliver All Pages Only For Small Documents, and Maximum Number Of Pages In A Small Document, respectively. See "Running the Accessibility Setup Assistant" for instructions on using the setup wizard.

Canceling delivery of the entire document

As Adobe Reader is sending an entire document at once to a screen reader, it displays a message box showing the progress of the tagging that is required to send the document. If the process is taking longer than you'd like, you can cancel the delivery by selecting Cancel in the progress message box. Return to the Reading category of the Preferences dialog box and select another delivery method, such as Only Read The Currently Visible Pages, for faster performance.

Setting Read Out Loud preferences

The settings that are described below affect only the Read Out Loud tool in Adobe Reader. They do not affect the corresponding settings for a screen reader.

You set all Read Out Loud preferences in the Read Out Loud Options area of the Reading category in the Preferences dialog box. The voice-control options are Volume, Voice Type, Pitch, and Words Per Minute. The volume setting determines the magnitude of the Read Out Loud voice relative to the volume setting for the operating system. It does not change the volume setting for the operating system. The Pitch and Words Per Minute options are available when you deselect Use Default Speech Attributes.

You can also set Adobe Reader to read fillable form fields aloud as you tab to them in an Adobe PDF form. When you select the Read Form Fields preference, the application always reads the short descriptions (if available in the document) of each form field. It also reads the current state of the form field. After you type text in a form field, you can have Adobe Reader repeat aloud what you typed by pressing Tab to exit the form field, and then pressing Shift+Tab to reenter the form field.

Note: When activated, the Read Form Fields preference makes Adobe Reader read form fields aloud when you tab to the field whether or not you are using the Read Out Loud tool. If this preference is enabled and you are using a screen reader, the field will be read twice — once by Read Out Loud and once by the screen reader.

Note: If the Read Form Fields preference is activated and you do not hear short descriptions for fillable form fields, the author of the PDF document did not include them in the document.

Reading category panel with Read Out Loud Options emphasized.

You can set Read Out Loud options in the Reading category of the Preferences dialog box.

To change Read Out Loud preferences:

  1. Open the Preferences dialog box by doing one of the following:
    • In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences, or press Ctrl+K, or press Alt+E, and then press N.
    • In Mac OS, choose Adobe Reader > Preferences, or press Command+K.
  2. Select the Reading category (in Windows, press the R key).
  3. To adjust the volume, activate the Volume drop-down menu (in Windows, press Alt+V) and change volume from 0 to 10.
  4. To adjust the default voice, select or deselect Use Default Voice (in Windows, press Alt+U).
  5. If you deselect Use Default Voice, activate the Voice drop-down menu (in Windows, press Alt+C) and select a voice.
  6. To change the speech attributes, select or deselect Use Default Speech Attributes (in Windows, press Alt+A).
  7. To change the pitch of the speech, activate the Pitch drop-down menu (in Windows, press Alt+P) and select a pitch value from 0 to 10.
  8. To change the speech speed, activate the Words Per Minute option (in Windows, press Alt+W) and type a value for words per minute. The value must be in the range of 150 to 650, inclusive.
  9. To have Adobe Reader read form fields out loud when the field receives focus, select Read Form Fields (in Windows, press Alt+F).

Using Full Screen view

A Full Screen view of an Adobe PDF document hides the toolbars, status bar, menu bar, and other windows so that only the document pane is visible. The settings described in this section affect Adobe Reader only while it is operating in Full Screen view.

Navigating Full Screen view

  • To enter Full Screen view, choose View > Full Screen, or press Ctrl+L (Windows) or Command+L (Mac OS).
  • To page forward through the document, press Enter or Return or the Down Arrow or Right Arrow key.
  • To page backward through the document, press Shift+Return or the Up Arrow or Left Arrow key.
  • To exit Full Screen view, either press Esc or press Ctrl+L (Windows) or Command+L (Mac OS).

Note: The Esc key works only if you have selected Escape Key Exits in the Full Screen preferences by following the instructions below.

Setting Full Screen preferences

For Full Screen view, you can set Adobe Reader to advance from one page to the next at regular intervals, with interval times from 1 to 60 seconds. When you select this setting, you can still go forward and backward manually by using the arrow keys and mouse.

Preferences dialog with Full Screen category selected, and Full Screen Navigation section emphasized.

You can also set the Esc key to work for exiting Full Screen view.

You can set the options for using Full Screen view in the Full Screen category of the Preferences dialog box.

To set Full Screen preferences:

  1. Open the Preferences dialog box by doing one of the following:
    • In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences, or press Ctrl+K, or press Alt+E, and then press N.
    • In Mac OS, choose Adobe Reader > Preferences, or press Command+K.
  2. Select the Full Screen category (in Windows, press F).
  3. To make pages advance automatically, select the Advance Every check box (in Windows, press Alt+A), and then type a number from 1 to 60 in the Seconds box.
  4. To activate the Esc key for exiting Full Screen view, select Escape Key Exits (in Windows, press Alt+E).